


Something Akin to Bliss

by professorgottlieb



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorgottlieb/pseuds/professorgottlieb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Domestic newmannessa ficlets based on tumblr prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Way It Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from [hugsfrompeeta](http://hugsfrompeeta.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr:
> 
> "Hermann and Newt plan a quiet evening in with dinner for Vanessa's 30th birthday."
> 
> This has changed and expanded in places from the one I posted on there, but only slightly.

Of course. Of course she knew. Vanessa’s husbands were possibly the least subtle men on this good earth, so of course she had figured out immediately that they were planning _something_. It began, as it usually did, with the bickering. Three weeks preceding her birthday, whenever they thought she was out of earshot, there were frantic whispers: one voice gruff and authoritative, the other high and insistent, each never nearly as quiet as they presumed themselves to be.

They never noticed her noticing. Of course.

Newt and Hermann never did anything half-heartedly, and she loved them for it. They were intense, intelligent, focused, but wonderfully oblivious men. So as soon as the whispering matches started, she simply shut the door quietly, strategically turned the volume up on the TV, popped an earbud in, and blasted the loudest big band tune she could find.

If they wanted to surprise her then she was damn well going to let herself be surprised.

As the day drew nearer, the bickering turned into pointed looks. She didn't know whether to be thankful for this development or not. Shifty eyes and the clearing of throats became commonplace at the dinner table. Parcels were delivered into her arms by the postman and promptly snatched away by a tattooed wisp before she could even read the address. When the phone rang Hermann bellowed “I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT!” from his office, and then slammed his door, and when the intercom buzzed at 3am one morning, Vanessa regained consciousness just enough to see Newt nearly impale himself in his uncharacteristic eagerness to get out of bed.

Then at last, the eve of her birthday was upon her. It almost felt like a childhood Christmas: checking the clock every half an hour and urging it to hurry up, chewing her lip impatiently. She found herself excited for own her birthday in a way that she hadn't been since she was a teenager. Her husbands, meanwhile, seemed to have worked themselves into exhaustion.

“Can we go to bed?” Newt had yawned, tugging at her sleeve as they finished a movie at the meagre hour of 11pm. " _Please?_ "

“Yeah baby,” she’d smiled quietly, running a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “Big day tomorrow.”

They had, after all, been working very hard. 

***

She was never going to complain about either of them ever again. Breakfast in bed was one thing, but they were on a whole other level. 6am they must have woken up to prepare this all. _6am_. Hermann never rose voluntarily before 7.30, and 6am was sometimes Newt’s _bedtime_ for Christ’s sake. Yet here they were. 6.30am, switching off her alarm (Stevie Wonder’s _Superstitious_ , always), trays in hand. Vanessa rubbed her eyes and outright laughed at the sight of them both. Hermann was the very picture of the perfect devoted husband, dressing gown he'd bought to match the pattern of his pyjamas, slippers on his feet, his glasses already hanging from the chain around his neck. The steam rising from his tray promised tea, the smell promised it was Rooibos. Newt, in contrast, looked like Newt. But he was inarguably his own picture of absolute perfection: wearing just a pair of boxers and his tattoos, his hair more ruffle-worthy than ever, his sleepy smile nearly too big for his face. His tray was piled heavily with pancakes, and more fruit than she'd seen in a long time.

“Happy birthday!” Newt cried excitedly, jumping into bed next to her.

“Newton, the tray,” Hermann chided long-sufferingly, before leaning down carefully towards his wife. “Happy birthday, darling,” he said quietly, kissing her full on the lips. She caught the back of his head before he could pull away, kissing him back thoroughly, letting go only to turn to Newt for the same brief treatment. Satisfied, for the moment, she leaned back onto her pillows with a contented sigh and folded her hands, businesslike.

“What have you got for me this morning, gentlemen?”

“Your favourite,” said Newt, attempting nonchalance even as he presented his tray with an expectant flourish.

Hermann rolled his eyes, carefully arranging the (rarely used) teapot onto the bedside table and placing her favourite mug on the nearest coaster.

“I haven’t seen mango all year,” Vanessa grinned through her fingers at the plates set out in front of her, before looking up again and narrowing her eyes. “I knew you had something planned."

Hermann and Newt glanced at each other sheepishly.

“Yes, well. Tea?” Hermann said briskly, lifting the pot again.

***

She kissed her husbands goodbye at 8.45am (more like 8.57am, but God knows they had had later mornings), and waved from the window as they got into the car. With them gone, she quickly changed into her favourite workout t-shirt and faded grey leggings, locating her iPod under a pile of (Newt's) dirty laundry in the bedroom. One of the main perks of being self-employed was deciding on your own hours, and on this day in particular Vanessa had decreed that her working hours would amount to approximately zero. Instead, the day had been pointedly marked on their calendar with the words "long, lazy and glorious". Admittedly, often her idea of lazy didn't fit in with most other people’s, but truthfully she could never bring herself to care. Ever since she was little, Vanessa had had _energy_. Sometimes more than she knew what to do with. But, most of the time, exactly the amount she liked.

It was a Glenn Miller kind of morning. She smiled all the way through the park with _Sunrise Serenade_ slow and playful in her ears, unable to focus on much at all except the absolute swell of contentment in her chest as her feet beat out a steady pace on the path. She felt like she was glowing, a beam of light shooting out from between her ribs. The world was bold and bursting with colour, and she was utterly in love.

The rest of the morning was equally well-spent. Back home she took the longest shower of her adult life, before settling down in front of the TV, her hair wrapped in two strategically knotted towels, eating a second breakfast concocted of a mix of the most sugary cereals she could find in the cupboard. At eleven, she linked up her laptop to the big screen, the better to Skype simultaneously with both her sister and father in London, and her cousin and his boyfriend in Düsseldorf.

Louisa's face was at once familiar and, as it always seemed these days, distinctly older. She let her see her prom dress: a short, red velvet number, coupled with a pair of beautifully studded black boots and one of her own old leather satchels.

Vanessa whistled.

"You're sure you don't want me to talk to my agent?" she teased, knowing that her sister would rather burn alive than willingly stand in front of a professional photographer.

"Isn't she grown up?" her father gushed quietly from their couch.

"Don't start, Dad, you'll set me off," Vanessa laughed, wiping her eye with the heel of her hand.

She was beautiful. And _old_.

***

Today's lunch had, for several weeks, been reserved especially for Alison. She and Tendo had a café, effectively their second child, still barely six months old but with a menu that kept getting better and better. They'd hired a few more ex-Shatterdome faces since the last time Vanessa had visited, who were fixing drinks and wiping tables at the kind of tempo that suggested this was their idea of life at its most luxurious. The sight of it filled her with a kind of second-hand contentment like nothing else.

“Don’t you dare spend a thing,” Alison had warned as soon as she'd finished squeezing the life out of her. “It’s your birthday, you should be pampered like a motherfucker.”

“I'm not even going to try and argue with you,” Vanessa grinned, straightening her glasses and sitting down at their usual window seat.

"That's your old age talking," said her friend, resting her elbows on the tabletop and returning her smile with twice the vibrancy. "I trust Team Science treated you right this morning?"

"Spoiled me rotten," she confirmed, with a nod.

"The way it should be," said Alison, hand over heart, raising her voice in the direction of the counter, in front of which Tendo was putting his finishing touches to the specials board. He flashed her a dazzling smile and flipped her off and _that_ , Vanessa thought, was married life in a nutshell.

In the corner of the board he had doodled a tiny Gipsy Danger, birthday balloons in hand.

***

She had spent the rest of the afternoon with the Chois, and by the time she made it to the entrance of their apartment block around dinnertime the car was already parked on the street outside. Yet their living room window, only one floor up, seemed to suggest they weren't home at all. She puzzled only a moment longer, however, catching the shift of a shadowy figure with his nose pressed up against the glass where he thought he couldn't be seen. Her tattooed wisp.

She bit her lip in an attempt to stop the huge smile that was threatening to break out on her face, glancing up again at the window to see it empty now, taking a deep breath in through her nose. She had, admittedly, had her suspicions all day. That the breakfast wasn't the end of the deal. The whispers, arguments, parcels, phone calls and glances had all been leading up to something more. They had wanted her to be surprised and, clearly, more surprises were in store.

Vanessa ran up the stairs – two at a time.

It seemed unusually quiet as she opened the front door, letting her heartbeat slow as she leaned back against it, closing it noiselessly, listening. Then, as she settled, she began to distinguish the sound of two familiar voices from the general static hum of their home. They were bickering, again, in whispers.

“No, I’ve lit them, I’ve lit them.”

"Then put the matches _down_.”

"I’m not a child! Hey, I was gonna press it -”

“Newton, for goodness’ sake, we can _both_ press it if it really means that much to you.”

“Aw, Hermann -”

“Be quiet. _Be quiet, Newton._ Press the damned button.”

Vanessa nearly jumped out of her skin at the blast of music that followed, and subsequently rapidly lowered in volume. _Stairway to the Stars_ made its way lazily down the hall. Now she could see that a low flickering glow was coming from the kitchen, and she slipped off her shoes to follow it, transfixed.

Peering carefully around the door, smelling immediately whatever amazing thing Newt was cooking in the oven along with the comforting scent of matches, her eyes adjusted to the sight in front of her. The table was set out beautifully for a meal for one, with all the lengths they usually never went to: a creaseless tablecloth, enough cutlery for at least four courses, the plates they usually saved for Hermann’s parents, an elaborately folded napkin, a tall champagne glass, and a vase of crimson flowers.

Her husbands stood at either end of the table facing towards her, their hands neatly tucked behind them, lit just by candles and the muted electric glow of the kitchen appliances. They were dressed almost identically, in well-fitted white shirts with small black bowties, black trousers and smart black aprons.

Hermann was flushing slightly as he bowed, but his voice was steady when he pulled her chair out with a: “Ma’am.”

Newton (whose shirt sleeves she could see were still rolled up, even as he poured her champagne) just winked at her.


	2. Cold Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wedding!” Nessa whispers. She has finished her stretches and crawled back towards the bed, laying her lower body carefully over Newt’s stomach so that her head rests on Hermann’s chest.
> 
> “Wedding!” Newt whispers back, his voice hoarse from sleep but his knees already starting to jitter, like the word has switched on a motor somewhere in his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on an anonymous prompt I got on Tumblr, which requested something involving Newt becoming flustered and nervous on the day of their wedding. Again, it's been altered since I posted it on my blog, but not significantly.

He’s not sure whether he’s still dreaming. The sunlight seems to have found him through the gap in their curtains, and it’s being pretty kind on his eyes. He can see the blur of Vanessa untangling herself from the bedcovers, her hand searching blindly for her glasses on the bedside table. Maybe a minute passes, probably more, and Newt guesses he probably dozed off again, but whatever. He's awake now, kind of. She’s on the other side of the room unrolling her yoga mat, a yawn on her lips, her hair bigger on one side than the other. He has half a mind to call her over for a kiss, with a mewl or whatever is capable of coming out of his sleep-tight throat right now, but he doesn't really want to distract her. 

Nessa’s done this for years. Almost every morning, in fact, but to him and Hermann it still feels pretty new, and he’s grateful that she lets them watch. He knows it’s personal for her: a part of her day when she is at her most peaceful. One day, if she wants to, he might ask her to teach him. As Vanessa lies on her back and begins to breathe deeply, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, Newt feels his fiancé stir lightly and shift nearer, the arm he has draped over Newt’s belly pulling him closer so he can get a better look over the side of Newt's head. 

Vanessa breathes and stretches, stretches and breathes, hums half a tune to herself, changes position, repeats her actions. Fluid, measured, relaxed. It’s not always elegant, but it is today. She’s slower than normal. Taking her time. Sometimes she makes it looks like a routine, but this morning it looks like a luxury. Newt can’t really tell without his glasses, but he’s pretty sure there’s a little smile on her lips. The type she gets when she’s sketching, or when Hermann trails good morning kisses across the freckles on her face, or when she’s running her fingers distractedly through Newt’s hair. 

Vanessa Driever is very beautiful. 

They’re getting married today. 

And, like a click of the fingers, Newt is feeling very suddenly most definitely awake. 

“Wedding!” Nessa whispers. She has finished her stretches and crawled back towards the bed, laying her lower body carefully over Newt’s stomach so that her head rests on Hermann’s chest. 

“Wedding!” Newt whispers back, his voice hoarse from sleep but his knees already starting to jitter, like the word has switched on a motor somewhere in his body. 

Hermann just blinks and smiles, dazedly, always last to reach the land of the living. 

“Yeah,” Newt breathes, more to himself than anyone else. “Wedding. Yes.” 

Vanessa sighs happily into Hermann’s chest, arms stretched out above her head and off the other side of the mattress, and Hermann tangles a set of elegant fingers in her wild hair. They are both such long and gorgeous human beings that Newt’s trying hard not to think about how comically tiny he is going to look standing next to them at the altar. Newt’s sort of trying not to think about the altar at all, actually, because that’s kind of the turning point of the rest of his life. 

Before they had been butterflies, but now he’s pretty sure he’s got kaiju mites in his belly. 

It's a symbolic gesture, anyway, not a legal one. It's a party. It's his limelight time. So what's with the reaction, brain? He's a rockstar. They're all supposed to be rockstars. But especially him. Since he had the rockstar aspirations first. 

So what’s an eternal commitment to Newton Geiszler? Newton Geiszler: kaiju expert extraordinaire. Newton Geiszler: undisputed genius, saviour of humanity. Newton Geiszler: walking down the aisle in a gorgeous white dress, picked out for him by a part-time fashion model and one J-Tech chief with a particularly exemplary fifties aesthetic going on. Newton Geiszler: standing next to the two greatest human loves of his life, sort of definitely promising to adore them forever and stay with them through thick and thin as a reliable constant in their lives regardless of what difficulties arise until death do they part. Shouldn't be a big deal. 

(But it is a big deal. It’s a big fucking deal.) 

“Marriage,” he whispers again, still trying to catch his breath, still smiling, still definitely terrified. “Yeah.” 

He glances to his side and manages to catch Hermann and Vanessa both raising their eyebrows, worryingly in sync. She’s propped herself up on her elbow, gorgeous and fresh and bleary eyed, chewing at her bottom lip to stop it from curling into a smirk in a way that she doesn't mean to be sexy but always always is. Hermann’s cowlick is fucking ridiculous this morning and he looks so dishevelled, so soft, and so sleepily judgemental that Newt wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss them both and then maybe jump out of the window, commando roll onto the sidewalk, and take off down the street shouting “NOT TODAY SUCKERS” or “CAN’T BE TAMED” or something equally as instantly regrettable. 

“Shit,” he says, and Vanessa laughs. 

Hermann is shaking his head. 

“No really, shit. Guys.” 

“Such eloquence,” his fiancé mumbles, voice groggy. 

“We’re getting married,” says Newt, eyes wide. "Today." 

“Yep,” Vanessa agrees, smiling widely, but her voice is suddenly quiet. "This time tomorrow, I'll be your wife." 

Newt can't find the words, which is rare, and for a second he fumbles before electing instead to make a motion with his fingers. It might be an explosion and might be his heart bursting - it's open to artistic interpretation - but either way it manages to make Hermann let out an involuntary fond chuckle. 

Vanessa shoots Hermann a pout, stretching a hand towards Newt’s jittering fingers to stroke and still. 

"You okay?" 

Newton has to take a breath before he nods. 

"I'm cool," he promises, "just, uh, nervous." 

"Want to let it out?" she asks gently. 

“Famous last words, my love,” Hermann mumbles, but he inches just a little closer – enough to rest his cheek against Newt’s bare shoulder and ghost his lips over the ink of Otachi’s tongue where it curls out from around the back of his neck. 

Newton’s breathing is slowing a little at their touch, and he takes a moment to tangle his fingers easily with Nessa’s and turn his face to meet the top of Hermann’s bedhead with a kiss, his heart now less frantic against his ribs. 

“Are neither of you, like, for want of a less gross phrase, freaking out?” he asks quietly, after a moment. “Or, you know, terrified?” 

“Undoubtedly,” says Hermann. 

Vanessa nods, with a smile. “Shitting myself.” 

Newt sighs, and runs his free hand through his hair. 

“I guess it's just - I'm so in love. With you both. But also irrationally scared of permanence. Not scared enough to scare me _away_ or anything. Just. Frightened, you know?” 

Vanessa makes a little noise in the back of her throat, simultaneously agreeing and adoring, and Hermann lifts himself up slightly on his hand for a better look at his fiancé, his expression both affectionate and stern in equal measure. 

“Newton,” he says, gently. “Please remember that you are never, at any point, under any sort of obligation to be _anything_ you are not.” 

Vanessa nods. "Or perform any action you don't feel comfortable with." 

Newt nods as well. "I know, guys." 

“Hey,” Vanessa mutters, concerned, sitting up properly now so as to reach Newt's face, her fingers spread against his tattooed chest, her knees on either side of his waist. “It’s the three of us, yes? Always. Weddings can be rescheduled, or abandoned, as we please. In the end, it's us who makes that call." 

"Our wedding day is as good a day as any to reassess the ground rules of this relationship," offers Hermann, "and act on them if necessary." 

"And whatever happens," says Nessa, "we’ll still get to keep the dresses. Which, let’s face it, is the main perk of the whole deal.” 

Newt is shaking his head. His nervous smile has widened into a grin, and he takes the moment of silence as a golden opportunity to wrap his arms around Vanessa’s neck, pulling her down into an enthusiastic kiss. 

“Nope,” he says, breaking apart with a short and desperate laugh, “this marriage is happening.” 

“It is?” Hermann smiles. 

“Yep. Yes. Wedding is happening. Reception is happening. Honeymoon is also happening.” 

Above him, Vanessa bounces excitedly, finding his lips again eagerly with a laugh, and Hermann buries his smile deep in the crook of Newt’s neck, whose giggles soon turn into whines as he squirms, his body small and nearly powerless beneath them. 

“Fuck all my irrational fears,” he says breathlessly. “Never ever giving this up.”


End file.
